December 4, 2022
The revelation was made by Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri in remarks during a meeting Saturday, according to the BBC and The New York Times citing Iranian state media agencies.
The news has been called "disinformation" by Iranian journalists critical of whether Iran would follow through with shutting down its controversial police force.
"The morality police had nothing to do with the Judiciary and the same institution that established it, has now abolished it," Montazeri said.
As noted by NBC News, Montazeri is not responsible for overseeing the morality police and it remains unclear if they would be completely abolished or return in another form.
The decision to shut down the morality police comes after months of violent protests in the county after the death of Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of the morality police after she was arrested for not properly wearing a hijab.Montazeri said Thursday that authorities in the country were reviewing the country's laws requiring veils for women and would make a decision on them within 15 days.
Iranian journalists such as Masih Alinejad have called the news "disinformation" and said that "it's a tactic to stop the uprising."
"Protesters are not facing guns and bullets to abolish morality police or forced hijab," she said in a tweet. "They want to end Islamic regime."
Iranian women who spoke with the BBC on Sunday said that "just because the government has decided to dismantle morality police it doesn't mean the protests are ending."
"A revolution is what we have," another woman said. "Hijab was the start of it and we don't want anything, anything less, but death for the dictator and a regime change."
Did Iran's 'morality police' really disband?
December 5, 2022
There is uncertainty over reports suggesting the notorious vice squad has been shut down. In any case, authorities have other powerful means of monitoring behavior and issuing punishment.
On Saturday evening, Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri told a conference that Iran's "morality police" have "nothing to do with the justice department" and have been "shut down by those who created it."
His statements were reported by the state-run ISNA news agency, and unleashed discussion around the world that the Islamic Republic was responding to massive public pressure following months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini.
The young woman died on September 16 after being detained by the "morality police" for allegedly wearing a hijab headscarf "improperly." Authorities have denied reports she was beaten and claim the 22-year-old died of a heart attack.
Statement 'taken out of context'
However, on Monday, state-run Iranian broadcaster Al-Alam reported Montazeri's statements had been taken out of context, and that Iran's justice department would "continue to monitor public behavior."
Iran "does not have a 'morality police,' rather a 'pubic security police' and the justice department has no plans to abolish it, nor will it take a step in this direction," local media reported Monday of what they say Montazeri as actually said.
Iranian women's rights activist Mahdieh Golroo told DW that Montazeri's statements represented a "tried and true" tactic of the Islamic Republic's information strategy.
"First, they claim something and engage media with it to raise hopes that this system is capable of learning and reform," the 36-year-old activist who lives in Sweden said.
She added that although the mobile units of the "morality police" could very well be changed from their current form, this doesn't necessitate a change in the strategy of using state power to enforce public behavior, like requiring women to wear headscarves.
Iran's network of 'morality spies'
And even if the "morality police" were ostensibly shut down, "another group could take over this task of controlling women in public."
For example, Iranian media have since reported tighter controls on strict dress codes, especially the hijab, being carried out by the organization, translated roughly from Farsi as the office for "Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil."
This organization operates in parallel to the "morality police." Founded in 1993, it is headed by a cleric in Tehran and relies on state financing to carry out its work.
Its cadres are mostly volunteers who supply information about alleged violations of 'morality' rules to one of 500 offices across Iran.
Stories of "morality" infractions find their way into pro-regime news agencies like Tasnim News, which ran a story recently about: "A ticket seller in a Tehran indoor playground not [wearing] a headscarf. As a result, the indoor playground was closed."
Stories like these are an example of the consequences faced by businesses and institutions if women working there do not wear a hijab as mandated by Islamic law.
One case reported last week in Qom Province south of Tehran involved a bank director who was fired after he served a woman who was not wearing a headscarf. The transaction was recorded on closed-circuit video and circulated widely on social media before being reported to a "Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil" office.
The group's secretary, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, believes the "morality police" and their mobile units, which can be photographed and filmed by citizens during the forcible detention of women, are counterproductive.
He had suggested in a statement following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in custody, that instead of using vice squads to enforce "morality codes," the police should rely on voluntary support of the "reliable population."
Golpayegani adds all that will be needed is better funding for the "Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil" organization, claiming that 3 million citizens are willing to support his organization.
Iranian city shops shut to step up pressure on clerical rulers
December 5, 2022
DUBAI, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Iranian shops shut their doors in several cities on Monday, following calls for a three-day nationwide strike from protesters seeking the fall of clerical rulers, while the head of the judiciary blamed what he called "rioters" for threatening shopkeepers.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide unrest following the death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 in police custody, posing one of the strongest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
Amini was arrested by Iran's morality police for flouting the strict hijab policy, which requires women to dress modestly and wear headscarfs. Women have played a prominent role in the protests, many of them waving or burning their headscarfs.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday that an amusement park at a Tehran shopping centre was closed by the judiciary because its operators were not wearing the hijab properly.
The reformist-leaning Hammihan newspaper said that morality police had increased their presence in cities outside Tehran, where the force has been less active over recent weeks.
Iran's public prosecutor on Saturday was cited by the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency as saying that the morality police had been disbanded. But there was no confirmation from the Interior Ministry and state media said the public prosecutor was not responsible for overseeing the force.
Ali Khanmohammadi, spokesman for Iran's headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice which oversees implementation of religious edicts, said on Monday the era of the morality police was over, but that there will be other methods to enforce Islamic dress code.
"Decisions are being made to confront those violations of hijab by a small group of women... officials cannot remain indifferent towards these violations," Khanmohammadi said
Last week, Vice President for Women's Affairs Ensieh Khazali said that the hijab was part of the Islamic Republic's general law and that it guaranteed women's social movement and security.
In the shop protests, 1500tasvir, a Twitter account with 380,000 followers focused on the protests, shared videos on Monday of shut stores in commercial areas such as Tehran's Bazaar, and other large cities such as Karaj, Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Shiraz.
Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
The head of Iran's judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said that "rioters" were threatening shopkeepers to close their businesses and added they would be swiftly dealt with by the judiciary and security bodies. Ejei said protesters condemned to death would soon be executed.
The Revolutionary Guards issued a statement praising the judiciary and calling on it to swiftly and decisively issue a judgement against "defendants accused of crimes against the security of the nation and Islam".
Security forces would show no mercy towards "rioters, thugs, terrorists", the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the guards as saying.
Witnesses speaking to Reuters said riot police and the Basij militia had been heavily deployed in central Tehran.
The semi-official Fars news agency confirmed that a jewellery shop belonging to former Iranian footballer Ali Daei was sealed by authorities, following its decision to close down for the three days of the general strike.
Similar footage by 1500tasvir and other activist accounts was shared of closed shops in smaller cities like Bojnourd, Kerman, Sabzevar, Ilam, Ardabil and Lahijan.
Kurdish Iranian rights group Hengaw also reported that 19 cities had joined the strike movement in western Iran, where most of the country's Kurdish population live.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the unrest since the death of Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the morality police for flouting hijab rules.
Iranian state media: Construction begins on nuclear plant
December 4, 2022
CAIRO — Iran on Saturday began construction on a new nuclear power plant in the country’s southwest, Iranian state TV announced, amid tensions with the U.S. over sweeping sanctions imposed after Washington pulled out of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear deal with world powers.
The announcement comes as Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests challenging the theocratic government that began after the death of a young woman in police custody over an allegedly violation of the Islamic dress code. In a possibly related move, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency late Saturday quoted a top prosecutor as saying officials had “closed” the morality police force responsible for enforcing the dress code. It gave no details.
The new 300-megawatt plant, known as Karoon, will take eight years to build and cost around $2 billion, the country’s state television and radio agency reported. The plant will be located in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province, near its western border with Iraq, it said.
The construction site’s inauguration ceremony was attended by Mohammed Eslami, head of Iran’s civilian Atomic Energy Organization, who first unveiled construction plans for Karoon in April.
Iran has one nuclear power plant at its southern port of Bushehr that went online in 2011 with help from Russia, but also several underground nuclear facilities.
The announcement of Karoon’s construction came less than two weeks after Iran said it had begun producing enriched uranium at 60% purity at the country’s underground Fordo nuclear facility. The move is seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program.
Enrichment to 60% purity is one short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Non-proliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.
The move was condemned by Germany, France and Britain, the three Western European nations that remain in the Iran nuclear deal. Recent attempts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, have stalled.
Since September, Iran has been roiled by nationwide protests that have come to mark one of the greatest challenges to its theocracy since the chaotic years after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. The protests were sparked when Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody Sept. 16, three days after her arrest by the morality police for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.
In a statement issued by the state-run IRNA news agency Saturday, the country’s national security council announced that some 200 people have been killed during the protests, the body’s first official word on the casualties. Last week, Iranian Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh tallied the death toll at more than 300.
The contradictory tolls are lower than the toll reported by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a U.S.-based organization that has been closely monitoring the protest since the outbreak. In its most recent update, the group says that 469 people have been killed and 18,210 others detained in the protests and the violent security force crackdown that followed.
Iranian state media also announced Saturday that the family home of Elnaz Rekabi, an Iranian female rock climber who competed abroad with her hair untied, had been demolished. Iran’s official judiciary news agency, Mizan, said the destruction of her brother’s home was due to its ″unauthorized construction and use of land″ and that demolition took place months before Rekabi competed. Antigovernment activists say it was a targeted demolition.
Rekabi became a symbol of the anti-government movement in October after competing in a rock climbing competition in South Korea without wearing a mandatory headscarf required of female athletes from the Islamic Republic. In an Instagram post the following day, Rekabi described her not wearing a hijab as “unintentional,” however it remains unclear whether she wrote the post or what condition she was in at the time.
Since September, there has been a reported decline in the number of morality police officers across Iranian cities. The group was established in 2005 with the task of arresting people who violate the country’s Islamic dress code.
In a report published late Saturday by ISNA, Iran’s prosecutor general, Mohamed Jafar Montazeri, said the morality police had been “closed.” He provided no further details about the state of the force, or if its closure was widespread and permanent.
″The judiciary continues to monitor behavioral actions at the community level,‘’ Montazeri added.
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